Step one: reevaluate your search parameters.
Step two: give the relationship some time! Too often things just move too fast. Used to be you would take the time to get to know someone (or several!) without getting too attached. Now it’s Hey, we’ve had a couple good dates, lets get married!

I’m a bit between both sides of the issue here. On one hand, acting like Jin and not trusting anybody will make you miserable in the long run. Being too trusting though might get you burned. Somewhere between the two extremes is best.

There are people (men *and* women, let’s be honest) out there who will say anything to get what they are after. The trick is watching them and seeing if their actions match their words, not letting your “vision” get clouded in that respect.

I say this as a person who has both “fallen for it” and “seen the truth”, in various ways, in different relationships.

I didn’t say it was *easy*, I just said that was the trick. 😀 Seems more often than not it’s a hindsight kinda deal, which stinks but ah well.

The more choices you have, the more desperate and random your choice will be. We get choice fatigue. Before agriculture tribes would “raid” each other for women. The young men would raid another tribe and return with cattle and unmarried girls, and the other tribe would retaliate and get about the same number of cattle and unmarried girls, but for some reason would get the other tribe’s girls rather than rescuing their own. The girl you kidnapped would be your bride. Rumors that tribes interacted socially and the boys knew which girl they were after are surely just rumors. Still, in that situation you have a dozen women to choose from.
Then agriculture happened and young men would find a woman in the same village or the next village over. Again a small number of women available.
Now…I could contact a few thousand women without a great deal of effort…sigh.
If you only have 12 choices, you can pretty quickly figure out who is the best one for you that will have you. With thousands you either get paralyzed by choices and choose nothing, or you just grab someone at random to avoid having to face the huge numbers.

Yes there are, but you see, when you defend the whole vague category of “us guys” against the lived experience of an actual wronged woman you’re standing in the way of the brush.

Anyway, as regards Alan’s mansplaining PUA side, I’ve always been able to parse reading it as a reality check: These kinds of people exist, and even sometimes manage relationships– they aren’t much like Monica and Kevin, but they make a valid parallel.

Plus, Alan has no. glyphing. clue. what the fuck he is in for. Sooo funny.